Plus One
by Aveza
Summary: At twenty-nine, Tai—world-traveled and perpetually single—is reaping the benefits of his bachelorhood. But when Matt and Sora's wedding plans kick into full gear, Tai begins to wonder if he's missing out. Through a series of chance encounters, he'll have to grow up—fast—and perhaps, in the end, he may find exactly who he's looking for. [Catherine/Tai/OC triangle, AU]
1. Save the Date

**Disclaimer****: I do not own Digimon. I can only claim my OCs. **

**Warnings/Reading Deterrents****: This fic will take place in an Alternate Universe. No Digimon will be featured/mentioned. Professions and canon pairings from the Adventure 02 Epilogue will be **_**honored **_**(more or less)****. Couples featured will include (in order of prominence): Tai/OC, Tai/Catherine, Sorato, Takari, and Koumi. There will be mentions/mild involvement of Kenyako, Davis/OC, Joe/OC, and Cody/OC. Dub names will be the most frequently used. Rated M for mature language and content.**

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**A/N****: So... this idea kind of struck me. I don't expect this to be a long fic (at least, I hope it won't be. I still have **_**A Boy and Girl Affair**_** to finish!), but it's kind of been eating at me. That, and sometimes it's a nice break to write with a more adult voice. Consider it an extended exercise in exploring the adult lives of the Digidestined—as tested in my short stories **_**Baby Octopus**_** and **_**Enchantment**_**. And that was a shameless plug. XD For fans of my other stories (namely **_**A Boy and Girl Affair **_**and **_**The Center of Everything**_**), the OC featured in this story will be the same one from the other two—with slight alterations. ;) **

**With that said, on to the chapter! **

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_**- Plus One -**_

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_Summary: Tai has no complaints about his life at age twenty-nine. His lucrative career as a United Nations officer has him travelling the world, enjoying the riches of foreign countries and the company of their citizens in standard bachelor style. But when Matt and Sora's wedding plans kick into full gear, Tai begins to wonder if there is fulfillment in his quick, busy pace and slapdash hook-ups. The wedding date is fast approaching, and what starts as a simple quest to find his 'plus one' turns into a serious search for his other half, but determination alone won't guarantee that he'll find her. _

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_Chapter One: __Save the Date_

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**H**e stared at the card frowning, his face equinely drawn. In his hands it sat like a brick, the fine, textured cardstock crisp and stiff, confetti shimmering off its sharp edges. Initial disappointment soon gave way to a type of frustrated nausea, as if he were a pirate suddenly handed his doom—the card in his possession _not_ a save-the-date but the terminal slip that was the Black Spot. His frown deepened, and the tight line of his mouth broke to expel a cross between a raspberry and a sigh.

_'Save the date! _  
_Sora Takenouchi & Yamato Ishida_  
_are getting married on_  
_September 29th, 20—'_

He stopped reading and flipped the card over, taking a moment to look up at the blank slate of his ceiling. His living room clock ticked menacingly in the void of his apartment, which was cold from yet another extended absence. There was something to be said of a young man whose mailbox was so full of envelopes upon his return home that the postman had left a note telling him to collect the remainder at the post office. Tai couldn't hold such a minor embarrassment against himself. He worked in international affairs. Travel was necessary and frequent. At the top of the pile had been the wedding save-the-date, pristine and perfect, the prelude to the crème-de-la-crème of engagements—a title not helped by the fact that it _was_ the rich, buttery color of cream.

His stomach growled.

The card was set aside on the kitchen table with a flick of the wrist. His house was skeletal. A thin film of dust coated his furniture and the air bore the faint, nose-irritating mustiness of the unused. Food was a lamentable but expected scarcity. He made the mistake of prying open his refrigerator door and was instantly hit with the disgusting fetor of neglected victuals. It smelled like the buzzing carcass of a gnu baking in the Sahara, which he knew only because of his work. His repertoire of sickening smells was surprisingly vast: snake guts in humid Thailand, lion farts in Kenya, the most horrifying, eyebrow-singeing B.O. in the subways of New York City. Leaving raw steak in there for three weeks was clearly a bad idea.

Typically, when introducing himself to others as a United Nations officer, the first things that came to his acquaintances' minds were flags, a tall, glass-paned building, and men in suits being chauffered about in ebony black town cars. Those were all well and true, but sometimes his meetings called him to rendezvous with other diplomats in a less formal setting (to be more personable, as his boss explained); hence the occasional negotiations conducted through a wet market, or business proposals discussed on safari.

He managed to scavenge a bag of rice crackers from his dusty pantry. The expiration date was past, but he ate them anyway, leaning back in a kitchen chair with his legs crossed at the ankles on the table top. A handful of the bite-sized snack was shoved into his mouth while he loosened his tie. The card was picked up again.

Sora and Matt's wedding was not news to him. The two had been dating since the early half of high school, and it simultaneously surprised and annoyed Tai that they had waited over a decade later to finally take vows that could have been taken right out of university. Hell, possibly even high school. Twenty-nine wasn't old in terms of marrying age—in actuality, it was pretty average—but he liked to think of Matt and Sora as the exception. All the days of seeing the two of them nuzzling noses in public like eskimos and cooing pet names like turtle doves had Tai rolling his eyes and issuing what would now be a dry, dead joke: "_Just get married already!_"

Now, they were. They finally were.

A thin, half-hearted smile crept up his face as he continued to examine the missive. Most of the confetti had fallen off, dusted over his lap like dandruff on a shoulder. He ran a hand through his hair.

The date of the wedding was logged into the calendar on his phone. It was a solid eight months away. A mental note was made to contact T.K. about when the bachelor party would be. Tai did, after all, miss the engagement dinner because he was in Switzerland at the time, eating chocolate and drinking tea over plans reviewed at an oblong, oval table with old grey men dressed in grey suits with grey hair or grey toupees atop their age-spotted heads.

It went without saying that Matt had made a wise decision choosing T.K. as his Best Man instead of him. The position had been offered—or at least talked about as if it were a possibility—but as much as Tai would have liked to be the groom's right-hand, his job didn't permit the honor. Besides, he was disorganized enough, and the only thing Tai was certain he would have done well was Matt's bachelor party. He wondered if T.K. would hire a couple of strippers for the event.

Sighing, he set the card down, sliding his legs off the table surface as he riffled through the rest of his mail pile. He stopped mid-sift, brown eyes catching sight of the façade of the save-the-date envelope, which he hadn't really looked at the first time.

"What the hell?" he gasped.

He snatched the envelope up and brought it close to his face, peering at the address the way his sister's kindergartners "read" picture books, with the page abreast their noses and their stares cross-eyed.

_'Taichi Kamiya and __Guest__'_

_Guest._ _G-u-e-s-t_. What the fuck was that word doing there?

"If this is your idea of a sick joke, Yamato..." he grumbled, pounding numbers on the touch screen of his phone.

"Koushiro speaking," came the voice on the other line.

"Izzy," Tai began. As usual, he did away with the pleasantry of a proper greeting. "Did you get the save-the-date for Matt and Sora's wedding?"

There was an abbreviated sigh on Izzy's end, a few bothers short of an actual snort.

"Hello to you too, Tai," Izzy deadpanned. In response, Tai supplied the grunt Izzy had curtailed out of politeness. "But to answer your question, yes, I received Matt and Sora's save-the-date a couple of weeks ago. I'm assuming you've just received yours after being in Vienna for approximately a month."

"What'd yours say on the envelope? It's addressed to who?"

"Whom, you mean," Izzy corrected.

"Like I give a shit about conversational grammar, Koushiro," Tai growled. "What'd it say?"

"My name, obviously."

Tai's left eyelid twitched. Izzy was lucky he was thousands of miles away in Massachusetts, teaching computer science as an assistant professor at MIT. Otherwise, the computer whiz would have more than just college students to worry about—like a bruise to his most prized organ, meaning his brain.

"Damn it, Izzy," said Tai. "Just answer."

"I did," Izzy replied. "The envelope bore my name. 'Koushiro Izumi.' That's all."

"No 'Koushiro Izumi and _guest'_?" Tai asked. "What about Mimi?"

The sigh the distant redhead emitted was far more audible this time.

"You forget that Mimi is also part of the bridal party," Izzy explained. "She received her own save-the-date." There was a pause. "Is that what this is about?" His voice grew high and girlish with curiosity. "Are you concerned about bringing a date to Matt and Sora's wedding?"

Tai's face fluctuated through a series of expressions—as if his skin were made of clay—before settling on a crabby frown.

"No," he deflected. He groaned and rubbed his brow, mussing up his thick eyebrows. Silence followed, every second of it densely incredulous. "Sort of," Tai revised, inching his way towards honesty. He sighed. "…Yes," he admitted. "But I wouldn't if my envelope wasn't fucking printed with 'Taichi Kamiya and Guest.' _Guest!_ Who the hell does Matt think I am? Casa... Casa... Some ladies' man?"

"It's Casanova," said Izzy with a chuckle. "And I don't think Matt had much of a say in the design of the save-the-dates. That was most likely the bride's and the maid of honor's doing; i.e., Sora and your sister."

Tai's phone, by then, had been placed on the table, switched to speaker-mode while he massaged his aching temples and pulled at the dark circles under his eyes. He didn't date. That was a fact. He _hooked up_, certainly. But he did not date. A novice international officer for the United Nations, young, single, with no ties and no anchors to string him down to any one locale made him the perfect game piece on the world's checkerboard. "Kamiya, you're being sent on assignment to Chile," or "Pack your bags, Kamiya, you're going to Nairobi," or, more subtly, "How's your Norwegian, Kamiya? Non-existent? Well, good. 'Cause your flight to Oslo is tomorrow morning." What were Sora and Kari suggesting by attaching "Guest" to his name? Did they expect him to waltz into the chapel with a Brazilian model he picked up at the airport?

He lifted his hands from his face, flirting with the idea for a moment.

Izzy's voice plucked him from his fantasy.

"Tai?"

"Yeah?" he replied.

The computer genius's form of friendly counsel and comfort continued, which essentially consisted of longwinded rationalizations of Tai's dramatized woes.

"I'm certain it was a fully well-intentioned gesture," he said, "and if you simply call Sora and Matt and tell them that it won't be 'Tai Kamiya plus one' when the wedding invitations arrive, I'm sure they'll think nothing of it."

Tai chewed on his lower lip, processing Izzy's words in serious contemplation. Izzy would attend the wedding with Mimi. His sister and T.K. were too perfect for words, and it didn't help that they were Maid of Honor and Best Man, respectively. He wouldn't have been surprised if they caught the bouquet and garter—also respectively. Ken and Yolei, meanwhile, had recently gotten engaged. Joe was seeing Yolei's older sister. Cody got cozy with a girl he met in law school. Even Davis had a significant other—a pretty, American journalist who did a cover story on him and his noodle cart business. They were two years strong and going, which was more than he could say for his own relationships. To define his trysts as 'relationships' was a joke in and of itself.

"This sucks ass, Izzy," Tai mumbled, having ignored everything the computer whiz had said previously.

"There is no social taboo that forbids you from attending the wedding solo, Tai," heartened Izzy. "In fact, I thought you enjoyed your bachelor lifestyle."

_I do_, Tai privately affirmed. He didn't care that he was still single while the rest of his friends were taking steps towards monogamy—measures some would consider improvements in life. The needling sensation poking his gut originated from the likelihood of him being alone at the wedding, reduced to the lighthouse of singledom in a sea of couples, trapped in the cloying entwinements of their suffocating waves.

He knew it was a childish, selfish thought. Petty, too. But he hadn't been in a relationship with a woman long enough to have to 'grow up.' He held firmly to the unequivocal belief that if he got enough champagne in him at the reception, he'd fishtail between periods of happy drunkenness and brooding about why he hadn't found his other half—his soul mate, or his _media naranja_, as the Spanish would say.

"I'm not going to be that one single guy while you all march in two-by-two," he stated.

"I find your repulsion unjustified, Tai. Weddings are also grounds for mingling. You may even meet your future wife at the venue."

"Yeah. Right."

Tai momentarily recalled some unpleasant memories concerning other female friends of Sora's and Matt's. Most followed the same storyline: they were introduced, they slept together, he didn't pursue, she got fed up, and now he was branded with a red 'A' on his forehead, for 'Asshole.' Only a few were content with one night stands, and, once sober, Tai was quite thankful for the mutually enforced distance. He liked to think he maintained his high standards when inebriated, but some mornings after suggested otherwise.

After wiping the grimace off his lips, Tai's eyes drifted back to the save-the-date card. He picked it up, glaring at it the way his superiors at work stared him down when he expressed the smallest hint of reluctance to a travel assignment.

"You're wrong, Izzy," he said. "This isn't a well-intentioned gesture. This is a challenge, plain as day. Sora and Kari put 'guest' here on purpose."

"I think you are reading too much into this, Tai."

The comment was ignored.

"Eight months is a good span of time, right?" asked Tai. He got up to throw the empty bag of rice crackers in the trash, keeping his mobile phone in his free hand. By routine alone, he opened the fridge in passing and swore loudly, sticking the crook of his elbow to his nose.

"Are you... all right?" Izzy tentatively inquired.

"Yeah, yeah," Tai managed to wheeze between coughs. He cleared his throat and blinked the saltwater clear from his stinging eyes. A dry heave luckily remained dry and was swallowed down, though just barely.

"But like I was saying, Izzy," Tai resumed. "I'm getting myself a date." His lips thinned into a mischievous smirk. "You can bet your ass on it."

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**A/N: You're probably wondering why Mimi isn't Maid of Honor. That'll be explained, and it's nothing nasty. She and Sora didn't have a fallout. It's more a practicality thing. Anywho... Yay? Nay? Questions? Comments? Concerns? Criticism? All are welcome, of course. :) **

**Thank you for reading! **


	2. Reality Check

**A/N: Thank you for your reviews! As far as canon goes... I try to keep characters in character, but I'm no expert handler of the Digidestined, and I may take liberties where I see fit. And here is where the cop-out AU setting comes in handy. XD**

**Right. I'm not going to reveal anything concerning, uh... ****_pairings_**** at this point because that'll spoil the fun. BUT... I will preface this chapter with a note about T.K.'s character. I play him as ****_highly_**** boyish, almost carefree. If you don't like that, too bad. That's my version of Takeru for you. Nothing much happens here, just lots of background—and Kari!**

**Happy reading!**

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_Chapter Two: Reality Check_

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**K**ari Kamiya stood before her chalkboard, felt eraser limply in hand. What she examined were the creative culminations of her kindergartners. They had been tasked with a last-minute, drawing free-for-all to burn up leftover energy, and their masterpieces were etched in an uneven line onto the grey-black slate, none of them veering too far away from the low chalk rest.

She smiled praisefully at the results. It was like a decorative border, a train of endearing squiggles, imperfect but beloved, like flowers out of season she would happily hang outside her apartment windows.

"That one looks like the troll in _The Three Billy Goats Gruff_... or your brother."

Kari giggled. To her credit, she remembered her manners by the time her chortles tapered out and covered her teeth with a hand, turning her gaze over her shoulder in the process.

T.K. smiled knowingly at her, his brow lifting in amusement. He leaned against her doorjamb, arms crossed, the straps of his backpack hugging his shoulders. The pose was abandoned once they met eyes, and he approached her, drumming his hands against the thighs of his jeans in an erratic, unmetered beat.

"You _do_ know he was thinking about accompanying me home this afternoon?" she said in greeting, sliding an arm around his middle the instant he slipped one around her waist. She shifted her arm a bit, trying to make space in between the back of T.K.'s winter jacket and his heavy bookbag.

"And you told him 'No.' Because you're a big girl and you have me."

He leaned forward and traced the doodle resembling to Tai—or at least the hair he proudly carried during high school. Kari watched him, her eyes narrowing on his profile. A corner of her lip pulled upwards.

T.K. continued.

"But I'm thinking it's more the former." His blue eyes shifted, one of them winking at her. "Am I right?"

Kari's fingers pinched some of the fabric of his coat and tugged playfully, her message delivered in silent agreement. Though it had been an endeavor years in the making, she was one of few women with whom Tai allowed himself the humility of deference. The others—their mother, Sora, and Mimi—had also earned their titles of authority by way of extended association, some of them unavoidable, like in the case of their mother, though for obvious reasons.

Kari had had a harder time. It wasn't easy knocking sense into Tai when he assumed the leadership role, and she, frankly, was of a meeker personality and build. T.K., though a younger sibling himself, was graced with a near opposite experience growing up. His parents were divorced, so when he and his older brother, Matt, spent time together, it was to bond, to be present for the other, not to protect or coddle or shield, though T.K. wasn't entirely exempt from those, either. Still, with his help, she gradually learned to stick up for herself, asserting her capability to function in a world independent of her older brother, and Tai, like a jagged rock smoothed out by the pounding of waves, eventually relented.

Of course, that didn't stop him from asking the usual questions whenever he was in town.

_'Everything all right with the teaching? Any parents giving you hell? Is Takaishi treating you well? Are you eating? Please don't tell me you're pregnant. Take your birth control pills every morning_.'

Honestly, he was often times just as bad—if not worse—than their mother. At least _she_ didn't ask if Kari kept to her birth control regimen.

"He'll be joining us for our dinner with Sora, Matt, and my parents," she said, slipping away from T.K. to grab her things.

Her back was turned toward him but she could still feel his face wincing, as if the expression were being drawn onto her spine.

"Don't be like that, T.K.," she chided, shutting her planner and shouldering her tote bag. She reached for him and took his hand. "You two get along fine. You like him. He likes you. No problems here, right?"

"Of course," said T.K.. He dropped the mock frown. "Tai's like my other older brother. I just hope he doesn't... uh... hold anything against me for being Best Man. I mean, juggling my last year of grad school and my brother's wedding isn't easy, and all the ideas I have for Matt's bachelor party end up related to literature."

Kari laughed.

"I'm sure Tai holds as much resentment toward you for being Best Man as Mimi holds for me being Maid of Honor—meaning none."

Her grip on his hand tightened as they walked out into the cold February air, blustery and infused with city smog. Kari herself had doubts about her fit for the honor, and she wished Mimi still lived in Tokyo. But with the chef, fashionista, and overall entrepreneur living the high-life in New York City, the title and all its responsibilities had fallen to her: Kari Kamiya, kindergarten teacher.

In an effort to keep the doubts from trickling into her brain, she picked up the thread about Matt's bachelor party.

"Name one of your ideas," she prompted, letting go of him as they reached his car.

"_Moby Dick_."

"No."

"Fine," he said, chuckling and ducking inside to throw his backpack into the rear seat. He sat, long legs stretching out under the steering wheel. "Amended, then. _The Odyssey._"

She looked at him, impressed, her face expressing the word she didn't say but which she knew was understood between them: _highbrow._

"See? Good, right?" said T.K.. He twisted his body around, throwing his arm over the headrest of Kari's seat as he backed out of the lot, talking throughout. She could feel his breath on the side of her face, warm and smelling lightly of coffee. She giggled faintly behind a hand. "I could get strippers to dress up like sirens," he went on excitedly. "And they'll serenade _him_ this time, instead of the other way around. I'll ask Tai for some ideas." He snickered to himself. "Take that, big brother."

On the car ride to her apartment, they tossed around other party ideas. Kari was less confident about her approach to Sora's pre-marriage blowout and did her best to keep up T.K.'s momentum about mermaid strippers. She jotted a mental note to phone Mimi. Otherwise, Sora's bachelorette party was in danger of being as exciting as her grandmother's knitting club.

"_Le Petit Palais_ at seven, you said?" T.K. called out of his car window. They had reached her neighborhood, and T.K. was reaffirming the rest of their plans for the evening.

Kari stood out in the lot, facing the driver's door. She nodded and added a reminder for him to dress appropriately—to which he replied with a shake of his head.

"Why your parents love that place is beyond me," he murmured, directing his gaze out the windshield. "And this coming from the guy who's a quarter French."

With a sigh, Kari leaned into the open window. She knew precisely why her parents preferred the upscale French restaurant, and she was not a fan of their reasons, either.

"I'll try to make it as painless as possible. Now, get going. I don't want you to be late for class."

"Yes, Miss Kamiya."

She reached in, giving his laughing chin a pinch before kissing him goodbye. A minute was taken to watch him drive away before she walked into her apartment complex.

After taking the elevator up eight floors, she reached her cozy, one-bedroom home, unlocking the door and giving it a wide swing as she walked in. She had just slipped off her right shoe when she caught movement on her living room couch. With a shriek, she stumbled to the side, crashing against the door panel while her knees gave way beneath her, lowering her to the ground until she was practically hunched to the floor, curled in the fetal position.

Her trespasser raised himself off her couch and stared at her.

"What... What are you doing here?" she managed to ask between gasps. She set a hand over her racing heart, debating whether or not she'd need to fish out her inhaler from her purse. All things considered, she shouldn't have been so surprised to see her brother in her house unannounced. He had done it before.

"You gave me a key to your apartment, remember?" he answered.

"Yes, for _emergencies_," Kari said, attempting to get back up on her feet. Tai walked over to help her up. Stubbornly, she refused his assistance and swatted at the air separating them. Once on her feet, she calmly returned to taking off her other shoe.

"Hey," Tai said, "you have the spare key to my apartment, too. You could have thrown parties in there while I've been gone. In fact, please do. I won't have to vacuum inches of dust when I get back from trips because I can count on you to clean up after yourself."

Kari was hardly entertained by the idea. Becoming housekeeper to her brother was an absurd prospect. She had no use for Tai's hollow home, but she would pass the information along to Davis, who, at twenty-six, still had plans to unleash twenty or so stray cats into Tai's apartment.

As she put on her house slippers, she looked her brother over swiftly. He was dressed in a sleeved, blue compression shirt, fitted to every muscle of his upper body, and some athletic shorts of a similar color. A quick glance at her shoe mat and there were a pair of size eleven running shoes—expensive judging by the brand, good condition, and matching streaks of blue. The items also explained the stench of sweat radiating off him. She sniffed.

"You're off, I'm guessing," she said.

"Customary jet-lag recuperation period," he replied, stretching his arms over his head. "Good thing, too. I'm fucking tired of wearing suits."

He plopped himself back on her couch, picking up his phone in the process and flicking his index finger repeatedly over the touchscreen. Kari took a moment to look over her apartment, curious over whether Tai had rummaged through her things while she had been away—snoop that he was.

"Did you meet with Mom and Dad yet?" she asked, spotting some books out of place on a shelf. She went to put them back in their proper order.

"Yeah..." he said, speaking to his phone instead of to her. Kari noted the rudeness but bestowed the frown to her books instead of him. "I, uh... I met up with them... for lunch."

"And how'd that go?"

"Oh, you know... The usual," Tai replied. "They ask me how my work was in Vienna. I tell them. Dad nods and says, 'Hmm, interesting, Taichi. Very interesting.' Mom shakes her head and doesn't. I explain. She still doesn't get it, so we change topics. I ask how things are around here. They say it's fine. Neither of them have broken a hip... _yet_. Then Dad can't hold it in any longer and asks if I brought a girl home. I say no. Mom gives me a look, says I'm not getting any younger and neither are they, and she wants her grandchildren. I tell her she and dad look good for their age and have _at least_ four more decades left in them so I have _plenty_ of time to do that. Then, hallelujah, the check comes and we say an amen."

Kari's chuckles cut off when she picked up the next item to re-shelve. It was a book on child-rearing she had bought recently but had yet to open. The cover had been flexed out of its fresh stiffness, and the flyleaf had a message written on it that wasn't there before:

_HIKARI,_ it read, _WHAT THE HELL IS THIS DOING HERE?!_

She sighed and put it back in its place anyway.

"Who's to say you haven't already sired a few illegitimate grandbabies on your escapades around the globe?" she quipped, wasting no time exacting her vengeance.

"Oh, ha, ha, Kari," Tai deadpanned. His eyes were still glued to his phone. "Who the hell says 'sire' these days? You spend way too much time with T.K."

She sniffed, loud enough for herself to hear it, but inaudible to Tai's general deafness to other people's disapproval.

"And I practice safe sex," he boasted, finally putting his phone down and looking at her glaring at him. "Unlike _some_ people I know." He squinted, and Kari's face stiffened, repressing the blush threatening to flood her cheeks.

She sat down in an armchair beside the couch, maintaining her composure.

"What's that?" she said. "You're probably diseased. Chlamydia Kamiya."

"Uh, no." Tai sat up and fastened his eyes on her, eyebrows bent at a sharp angle. She knew what he was thinking. _Did my baby sister just throw a fastball insult at me?_ Yes. Yes, she did. "I'm clean," he insisted. "Last check up with resident physician Joe Kido said so. And _I_ wasn't the one with the pregnancy scare, ahem." He turned his attentions back to his phone, but he glanced once at her. "Why else do you think I tell you to remember to take your birth control pills every morning?"

Kari was tempted to rub the back of her head. A small pain started throbbing in the bounds of her cranium, but she kept her hands where they were, on her lap.

"For the last time, Tai, it was _not_ a pregnancy scare. My period was late. That's all."

"Uh huh."

He reclined back on the couch, stretching himself out. She wanted to slap him.

"It was my first year out of university," she defended. "My first month on the job teaching and the same month I moved out and was living on my own. It was also around the time T.K. and I had just gotten back together. It was a tough month _and_ a tough year. There was a lot of stress."

"You were also fucking twenty-two with a joke of a starting salary," Tai murmured. "You know, the _ideal_ starting point for motherhood."

Kari crossed her arms. Like _he_ of all people was an expert in family planning.

"I don't understand what point you're making, Tai. Women in Africa get married and have children far younger than that. You should know. You've been there."

"Well, yeah, but the culture is different," he said, capitalizing on an uncharacteristic moment of snobbery. He gesticulated to the ceiling, still speaking to the damn screen of his phone. She wanted to rip it out of his hands, but, again, she stayed put. Tai tended to wax international officer whenever a continent was introduced in conversation, and she was betting on that to take her off the hot seat.

"The success of a woman there—particularly in the indigenous tribes—" he continued, "is based off of her ability to bear sons and raise families that will help maintain farmland and villages. Unlike here, where her job is to _find_ a job and independently survive the call and demand of metropolis before she marries and surrenders herself to the home life."

"Thanks for the anthropology lesson, Professor," she mocked.

Tai laughed—cackled, more like.

"Nice try, Kari, but don't change the subject." Finally, he sat upright and set his phone aside, facing her square on. "_You_ had a pregnancy scare. And you _were_ seriously scared, Kari. I remember. Didn't help that T.K. knew jack shit what he was going to do with his life and could offer little to help you financially."

Kari's lips thinned, curled in under self-inflicted pressure. She knew her brother wasn't deliberately trying to talk badly about T.K.. His insensitive remark was residual of his fraternal concern. He wanted what was best for T.K., but forgot, like many parents and guardians, that "best" was a relative term.

She sighed and scratched a fingernail over the crease of her khaki pants.

"I'm sorry my boyfriend decided to keep a scrap of his integrity and pursue a degree he loves and enjoys," she said, speaking to her lap. Her defense sounded pathetically romantic, an observation better suited for daydreaming highschoolers—not a twenty-six-year-old working woman. Still, she would utter a million banalities if it meant supporting her beau in all his doings—mistakes and errors of judgment aside. "And he _did _have a job at the time," she added. "He was working in a bookstore. At least he doesn't complain about what he's doing now."

"Of course he's not," scoffed Tai. "He still doesn't have a real job. He's in grad school getting his... I don't know... a Masters in English. The fuck is he going to do with a Masters in English?"

"There are a lot of things he can do with that degree. Why limit himself? And you're one to talk, Tai. You have a well-paying, lucrative job, and you complain about it like a baby."

"Says you. You whine about kids and parents and other teachers to me all the time."

She saw him blindly reaching for his phone, his crutch in times of disintegrating interest.

"But the _teaching_ I don't carp about," she parried, staying him from reaching the piece of technology. "I do what I love," she stated, "and T.K. will too, and we'll be happy."

Tai looked at her, his face softening in seriousness. He leaned back on the couch and exhaled loudly, folding his arms behind his head.

"Kari..." he sighed. "You're being impractical."

The retort left her lips before she could check it.

"And _you_ are practical?"

He shrugged.

"Yeah. Why do you think I worked my ass of in school for eight fucking years to get a fucking Masters in International Affairs?" He leaned forward, getting worked up—as usual—over his academic success, which was quite the opposite with the general populace. She never understood why.

"Tai," she said, bending forward herself. "You _whine_ when you're sent to a location you don't like. You groan when you are tasked with an assignment you don't want to do, you have almost _nothing_ nice to say about your colleagues and superiors, and when you leave for work, you do this." She pursed her mouth and flicked her index finger over the protruding lips, blowing a raspberry.

He wrinkled his nose at her, setting his large hand on her face and nudging her back. She slapped his hand off, the both of them chuckling.

"It's called _earning _a living for a reason," he commented. He cleared his throat, and their laughter rapidly dissolved into silence. "Sucks, but it pays."

It was a universal, crudely put truth, and Kari smiled defeatedly in its echo.

"One day, dear brother," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder, "you are going to meet someone who lives for their passion, _not_ the pay out. And then you will eat your own words."

"You mean aside from you and T.K.?" He chuffed. "Right, Kari. If I find one, I'll tell them they're being a fucking idiot."

She shook her head hopelessly at him and stood to go into the kitchen. Her headache was peaking, and she was in dire need of her go-to stress-reliever.

"I'm going to make some tea," she announced. "You want a cup?"

"Sure," said Tai, following her. "Just none of that blooming shit you gave me last time. I ate the flower."

"You're the only person I know to have made that mistake, Tai."

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled. "My sister, the tea snob."

He went back to fiddling with his phone, leaning against her counter and using his thumb this time to make sweeping motions over the screen. One day, Kari told herself, she would wrench that device from his grasp and toss it out the window.

"Excited for dinner tonight at _Le Petit Palais_?" she asked, measuring tea leaves into an infuser.

"Mmm..." was all he allowed.

"I take that as a no?"

With difficulty, he pried his eyes away from his phone screen and looked at her, his stare hardening. She knew the warning well and allowed his rising temper a few moments to boil down, occupying herself with the present chore of pouring hot water into a pot.

Even so, Tai remained mute as she poured him his tea. It was Earl Grey, simple enough for his unpolished taste buds, and he accepted the saucer and cup with the slightest grimace, which Kari routinely ignored. She had subjected him to countless tea parties since they were children, but he had yet to be accepting of the ritual, finding it an affront to his masculinity. In contrast, a typical afternoon with T.K. consisted of them sitting down, sipping tea, and finishing up the morning crossword—an activity Tai branded as "weird."

"Kari," he said, making a face as he drank. He licked the backs of his teeth in either distaste or discomfort—likely because he had burned his tongue. "You know what I think of dining at _Le Petit Palais_."

She nodded subtly. _Le Petit Palais_ was the favorite restaurant of Tai's former girlfriend, a girl their parents adored and one Kari had grown to resent the longer she continued coming up in her brother's speech. It was a rate congruous with the distress her name seemed to inflict on him. One syllable of her name could make him twitch. One complete utterance enough to have him hack out a subject-changing cough.

It wasn't that their relationship ended badly. It was precisely the opposite. He had met her in France when he had studied abroad. For a while, they tried the long distance relationship, and she even came to visit him in Japan one summer. But proximity proved more vital than either of them could foresee, and, mutually, they parted ways—only to rendezvous whenever they were within one hundred miles of each other.

Tai insisted there were no emotions involved, but Kari assumed otherwise. Convening at _Le Petit Palais_ raised two certainties, one contingent on the other. Firstly, their parents would not be able to shut up about Tai's ex, and, subsequently, Tai would be forced to relive everything he had purportedly "given up" for the sake of his job. The last time they had eaten there was when she had finished her first year of teaching, and her brother had rubbed his forehead so many times that the skin was thoroughly polished by the end of the night.

"Did you... see her when you were in Vienna?" she asked, knowing full well what his answer would be. To smooth over her prodding, she slipped a cookie onto his plate.

He responded with another reluctant and throaty hum.

Kari bit her lip, attentively watching her brother wipe his jaw with a hand as if he had a toothache. Idly, she stirred milk into her teacup, letting the clink of spoon on china fill the silent void between them.

"How is she?" she said softly.

"How's who?"

Kari inhaled deeply. He always did like to prevaricate by pretending to be dumb.

"Tai," she said, sounding like their mother. "You know who I mean." He turned his gaze to her after stalling for a few seconds by looking out the window. Crossing his arms, he leaned back, mouth stubbornly shut. He would require some provoking, like a schoolboy who refused to apologize to a student he'd bitten. "Tai," she repeated, calmly. "How is she?" She paused and dropped another cookie onto his saucer, her eyes bravely on his own.

Her lips parted a second time.

"How's Catherine?"

xXx

**A/N: Ack. So sorry nothing much happens here. But as a fair warning, there will be another "informative" chapter before the plot picks up. Don't know if you expected Tai and Catherine to already have a past, but, there it is. And I really do like Kari. I hope I did her character some justice (but feel free to tell me otherwise!).**

**Anyway, thank you, as always, for reading! :D **


	3. Dine and Dash

**A/N: Shucks, guys. I am so sorry for the delay! I just couldn't get this chapter right. I still think it has issues (**_**lots**_** of pointless conversations, in my opinion), but you do get to see some of the mains and secondaries interact—a lot, actually. Also, there's some info on Miss Catherine! I am SO excited to actually start writing her, and I hope you'll like how I set her up once you see her in action. **

**Okay, enough blabbing. Enjoy the chapter!**

xXx

_Chapter Three: Dine and Dash_

xXx

**I**t was not like them to be late. They were always punctual, always arriving to social engagements with consideration to other people's schedules. Of course, the night they were to dine with the Kamiyas, they _had_ to have encountered a _tempting_ diversion. The memory of it had Matt glancing at Sora as they speed-walked from the parking garage to _Le Petit Palais._ Her hand passed over her red hair for the seventh time, flattening frizz and flyaways caused by the humidity of a post-shower bathroom. He reached out and caught the fingers, leaning in to kiss her forehead.

"You smell like my shampoo," she murmured, peeking at him as they approached the restaurant entrance.

Matt shook his head as he opened the door for her, chuckling albeit.

"Next time," he whispered, slipping an arm around her waist as they stepped inside, "we're using _my _shower gel, and _you_, Takenouchi, will traverse the walkways of Tokyo smelling like the sharpest, most well-dressed, and handsome man."

"You can be as assertive as you want, Yamato, but for now," she began, laughing into his shoulder, "_you _are the poster boy for 'Forbidden Fruit,' latest shampoo scent of Mimi Tachikawa's hair product line."

He grunted.

Victorious, Sora led him by the hand to the _maitre d', _who stood in a black dress coat behind a dark and imposing mahogany counter. They were there to rendezvous with the Kamiyas and T.K., hoping to catch up with Tai about his recent international assignment and to tease everybody else with wedding details. Matt would have preferred keeping their reunion simple, opting, rather, to get together over a home-cooked meal. Unfortunately, he wasn't in charge of organizing the event, and so the appointed venue was, and would continue to be, at a place adorned with golden, baby-faced cupids.

_Le Petit Palais_ was, in essence, all of two things: expensive and baroque. Its main attractions were its chandeliers: golden, sparkling, and convoluted. They hung over the dining area in bombastic rows, like giant, glitzy beehives, complete with a honey-glow and the buzz of dainty, nasally dinner prattle. Matt could only peer at them through squinting eyes, his stare uncommonly sensitive to the shivering crusts of crystal.

In truth, he half-expected the behemoth light fixtures to drop and cause disaster whenever he ate at _Le Petit Palais. _He pictured them as beads of trembling dew, on the verge of crashing to earth in stellar splashes. A favorite story of his grandfather's had been the tragedy surrounding the Grand Chandelier of Paris's Palace Garnier. The architectural wonder had fallen during a show and killed an audience member, and the moral of the story had always been the same. 'Remember, boys,' their grandfather would say, 'art _kills_.' And T.K.'s witty response never changed, either: 'I sure hope it does, _Grandpère_.'

Sora interrupted his morbid musings.

"Good news," she said.

"Hmm?"

"We're not the last people to arrive. We're still waiting on one person."

Matt couldn't help but laugh. Their resident U.N. officer was no coward when it came to trying new things or facing day-to-day crises, but Tai had a unique allergy to _Le Petit Palais_. The frilly, French restaurant contained a swarm of monogamous memories for Tai, every inch of it harboring some shard of a romantic memory. Matt could still remember the two dinners they had had with Catherine within its glamorous vicinity. She had sat between Tai and his mother, speaking in her low accent, a slight lisp behind her small, white teeth. Haloed around her blond head had been the soft sheer of candlelight. Her hand had rested over Tai's atop the table.

Tai would never snarl and turn his head the other way if Catherine came up in conversation, but he would dodge, fish for escape routes, like a diner begging for the check when good food failed to neutralize bad company, and that sort of behavior was odd.

Confrontation was Tai's indisputable specialty. He charged into challenges like a bull during the festival of San Fermin, but any conversation about Catherine left him looking exhausted, dejected, even, as if a 'Kick Me' sign had been thumbtacked to his spine, and everybody could read and obey it.

That Tai was late confirmed Matt's suspicions as he and Sora walked into the wait area. Kari and T.K. were already present, seated on a cushioned bench beside Mr. and Mrs. Kamiya, both of whom looked like it was past their bed time. In contrast, the younger couple sat distracted, watching something on T.K.'s phone.

"Look it, look it!" cried T.K., nudging Kari as he pointed at the phone screen. He laughed gaily and slapped a hand on his knee. Kari's delicate nose perked up in amusement—more, seemingly, from her boyfriend than from whatever they were watching.

"Killing time watching the latest viral video, baby bro?" Matt greeted.

T.K.'s neck snapped upward, sending some blond hair falling over his eyes. Quickly, Kari reached over and tenderly brushed the strands away.

"Hey, my flaxen-haired Adonis," T.K. said, smiling. The blue eyes they inherited from their mother zoned in on him. "You and Sora are never late for dinners. What's up? Got caught in traffic?"

Matt offered him a harmless smile, his stare shifting as he stalled for an explanation. Sora was taking off her coat to check in, and the first thing he noticed as the sleeves slipped off her shoulders was the back zipper of her dress resting more than a few inches undone.

"No," Matt answered simply. He stepped behind Sora and discreetly yanked the zipper tab up, remaining a second extra behind her to re-clasp the hook of her strapless dress. The movement reminded him (in photographic detail) of how he had done the opposite but an hour earlier. "Just lost track of time."

A cheek muscle in T.K.'s face flinched and his left eye squinted, a tic that betrayed both doubt and curiosity. Matt hated the look—not because it questioned his sincerity, but because it resembled a leer. The expression indicated that T.K. had plans of storing whatever explanation that followed for future use in his writing. That was the last thing Matt needed, to be immortalized as some character in his brother's magnum opus.

"Oh," Sora interrupted, looping her arm around Matt's. "Your brother just decided to take a nap when he got back from work. Messed up our entire plans for getting ready this evening."

"...Right." T.K.'s eyebrows arched slowly, but before he could request finer details, Kari spoke and saved Matt from fabricating another excuse.

"Tough day at work?" she asked.

"It's not that exactly," replied Matt, rocking lightly on the balls of his feet. "I've just been focusing on a few tasks—" He cleared his throat. "—outside of work."

"Which are...?" probed T.K., fixing him with another squint.

Matt's reply settled quickly on his tongue. He was prepped to say, "Go back and watch Shiba Inu puppies on your phone, T.K," but Mrs. Kamiya saved him the inconvenience. The final member of their party had at last decided to show his face, and she announced his presence with a shrill cry that was both greeting and reprimand.

They filed into the dining area soon after, following their coat-tailed attendant like a procession of dandy ducklings. The last time they had eaten at _Le Petit Palais,_ they had had the privilege of being seated by a table clearly populated by members of the one percent. Matt had nothing against the wealthy (he was friends with Mimi after all), but T.K. had viewed their dining neighbors as a fountain for character inspiration.

Matt had sat next to T.K. throughout that entire dinner, and the aspiring author had pulled out his pocket notepad before their appetizers had even arrived, snickering to himself while he jotted observations and bits of conversation. At one point T.K. had asked him, "Do you think Obnoxious-Woman-Who-Is-Likely-Suffering-A-Mid-Life -Crisis owns a Pomeranian or a Chihuahua?"

"Pomeranian," Matt had answered, swallowing down the rest of his wine.

"Hmm... quite probable. Though, I'm prone to thinking she owns a French bulldog. The color of charcoal, nasty, yappy, and shits on her husband's Prada brogues every morning."

At present, Matt caught T.K. already eyeing their neighbors for this specific occasion, a sparkle in his blue eyes that seemed to express, sans words: "Ah. Fresh meat."

He heard a loud sniff beside him.

"You smell like a fucking fruit tart," Tai said, unbuttoning his suit jacket as he took the seat beside him.

It was a habit Matt had only recently observed. No one in their high school or college would have imagined Tai to ever look neat or posh, but to everybody's surprise, the former athlete had cleaned up nicely. His grey suit was a stark contrast to, say, T.K.'s attire, which consisted of a collared shirt, a crooked bowtie, and khakis that sported holes in the seams around the front pockets.

"It's good to see you, too, _M_. Kamiya," Matt teased, playing along. He gave Tai a loud clap on the shoulder. "And for the record, you smell like you rubbed your face with a leather shoe. Your trip to Vienna close nicely?"

"I know I've been gone a while, Yamato," Tai said, reaching over for his water glass, "but I really don't want to talk anything European when I'm here sitting in the fucking faux Palace of Versailles, all right?" He was avoiding eye contact with him, his brown stare, rather, trained nervously on his parents who sat on the other end of the table.

Matt hummed his agreement, lightly bobbing his head up and down as he pretended to read the menu handed to him. Silence befell their table as seven pairs of eyes scanned the cursive script in the heavy, leather-bound folders. Sora murmured something to him about sharing the duck l'orange with her. His consent was automatic.

Across from them, T.K. leaned in to Kari, his index finger idly mimicking the loopy flourishes bordering the menu page while Kari underlined an entrée on her own. His brother's restless writer hands would get bored eventually, and Matt was certain that, before the night was over, T.K. would try making his wine glass sing.

"So..."

Tai cleared his throat and glimpsed at Matt, his lips twisting to form words.

"Yeah?"

"I... got your save-the-date." There was a pause as Tai took in a breath, his chest puffing a little. "Pretty official now, isn't it?"

Tai's thick eyebrows elevated slightly, stretching his brown eyes open wider than usual, the irises ringed with both amusement and a flicker of something else less than benign. Matt couldn't decipher if it was a look of challenge, skepticism, or, even, sadness. Perhaps it was a combination of all three. There was something to be celebrated in the look, certainly, but there was also pain—and maybe a veiled threat.

Matt grinned.

"Well, yeah, Taichi," he said, slouching back to reveal Sora. He took her hand in his and held their laced fingers beneath his chin. "I'm on the point of no return, you could say. These eight months will fly by, and I'll blink and find myself at the altar." The words had been said to Tai, but Matt had looked at Sora for most of them, glancing once over his shoulder to see Tai smiling into his wine.

"_That_ makes an excellent story idea, Yama," interrupted T.K.. He pointed at him over the bowl of his wine glass, elbow propped on the table. "Man living in a dream-state suddenly wakes and finds himself marrying...?"

The young blond looked from face to face, hand out and palm up like a magician asking, "Where? Where did the dove go?"

Kari answered.

"The woman of his nightmares."

"Be more specific."

"Hmm..." Kari's fingertips provided a drumroll on the table edge. It was clear the two of them had played the game several times. Matt glanced at Tai, and the expression swapped was the same: a dulled, disgusted look of complete lack of surprise.

"His mother," she finished.

Tai gagged.

"That's sick."

"That's perfect!" cried T.K.. He threw his arms up in the air. "Twisted, dark, incestual!" His hands were brought back down to the table, and he tipped forward, blue eyes shining brilliantly. It was a look Matt knew well. Ever since he was a child, T.K. exuded an aura of enthusiasm that was almost electrifying.

"Don't you know, Tai?" the grad student said. "That's the stuff garnering all the literary accolades!"

"That would require him actually reading," Sora contributed, sending the brunet a wry smile. Laughter circled its way around their end of the table, eluding the attention of Mr. and Mrs. Kamiya who were busy poring over the menu, and coming to a dead halt at precisely the person at the butt of the joke. Proudly, Matt put an arm around Sora, who was beaming, encouraged by their cackled approval.

Tai leaned back in his chair and sighed. He played with the tines of his salad fork.

"Saw your latest designs sweeping the fashion boutiques in Milan, Takenouchi," he remarked, flicking his eyes at her.

Sora raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"You did?"

"Yeah." The corner of Tai's mouth kicked upwards. "In the clearance sections."

Matt checked the chortle that surged up his throat, slyly covering up the strangled noise with a pass of his hand over his mouth. His fingers worked to mold his smile into its opposite.

Sora shifted away from him, letting his arm fall away from her shoulders as she picked up her wine glass in one fast swipe. "Oh, very funny, Tai." She snorted, folding an arm across her chest while she drank. "Like I'd seriously believe that you pay attention to women's fashion."

"Damn right, I don't," Tai replied. He clapped Matt hard on the back. "That's Yamato's job."

The evening commenced at a leisurely pace from that point onward, the atmosphere melting warm and languid like the wax of the candles resting in the center of their table. Conversation cycled, topics and speakers toggling back and forth like the marble in a pinball machine. T.K. and Tai argued politics. Kari shared stories about her students. Sora dropped wedding details to Mr. and Mrs. Kamiya.

Matt observed it all, monitoring conversations that dwindled and rapidly approached the awkward pause. He would catch cues from the others: Sora's hand tapping his knee under the table, Kari's eyes glancing at her parents, T.K. deliberately dropping his fork in his practiced clumsiness. Their surprisingly coordinated efforts to sustain conversation—no matter how trivial—was solely for Tai's benefit. If a long enough gap occurred, Mrs. Kamiya would pounce on it, fill it with the subject she had patiently and politely been withholding for the majority of the evening.

They had applied the dinner strategy often enough to know that Tai would be no help to them or himself. His method of avoiding any conversation about Catherine wasn't elusory. It was anesthetic. He numbed himself to the harrowing possibility with wine, drinking stealthily, but frequently, until he was red and relaxed and cracking jokes like a perverted old man.

Currently, Matt could hear Tai and Sora speaking over his back, throwing verbal jabs at each other about the latest tennis grand slam and Japan's upcoming soccer friendly. He had just cut into his food and taken a bite when he felt a nudge on his arm and inhaled a strong wind of wine-breath.

"You did her before you came here, didn't you?" Tai whispered, leaning in.

Calmly, but no less confused, Matt leaned back, an eyebrow pulled up. "Having a little too much to drink already, Taichi?"

"I'm barely buzzed, Yamato. And don't change the subject. _You—_" Matt felt a fist bump into his shoulder. "—are a dirty bastard."

Matt scoffed.

"All right, love guru," he started, keeping his voice low. He was unaware that the present table-talk about the foie gras controversy was dying to a staticky murmur. "You get, what? Super-magical, sex-sensing powers when you were in Europe? And what are you? Fifteen?"

"It's not rocket science, Matt, which you would know, you aero-fucking-space engineer. Just look at her. She's glowing!"

"A million points of light from these huge-ass chandeliers kind of has that effect, Tai." He reached for his wine glass and tossed back a swallow even though he wasn't thirsty. It was a peculiar, but subconscious, habit of Matt's to fall into a type of frat-boy cant whenever he and Tai had a tete-a-tete. Otherwise, his language was censored, vague, and polite.

As Matt set his glass back down, he caught Kari's worried stare across the table.

_Shit. _He risked a look in the direction of Mr. and Mrs. Kamiya, and saw the latter leaning forward, elbow on the table, fingers pensively rubbing her chin.

"Taichi," Matt growled, "would you shut u—"

"You just won't admit it, will you, Ishida?" Tai continued, laughing in his obliviousness. "You son of a b—"

"Taichi."

Yuuko Kamiya's voice traveled across the table like a bolt of lightning, zapping its intended target with the same effect as one. Tai's slouched posture shot up, his gaze stilled and stiffened, the jolt fizzing through his body leaving his dinnerware quivering on the table top. Matt looked apologetically from Kari, to Sora, to T.K., all of whom shared his concern, before he looked back at Tai. Conversation had stopped, and they sat surrounded by the endless murmur and echo of metallic clinks and rattles.

"Takeru told me he liked the wine we picked out for the table," she announced, simply.

It always dumbfounded Matt how Tai's mother could speak so unaffectedly to an audience that was presently staring at her like a barrel of gasping fish. Then again, she was the type of woman who, when rubbernecking at a car accident, was more interested in seeing if someone's head had been lopped off than in securing medical attention for the said wounded. She was entranced by the specifics, gathering bytes of miscellaneous data but never processing them into unified, usable information. They were just collected, sitting in storage, populating every shelf in her brain like useless knick-knacks on display.

"Yeah," Tai replied, sobering in seconds. "It's good wine."

"Catherine first recommended it to us, remember?" Mrs. Kamiya went on. "I think it was the first time we took her here, right? Or was it the second...? Well, it doesn't matter. She was so amazed when you brought her here, wasn't she? Reminded me of Kari when we first took her to the pet store to get her cat, Miko. Eyes all wide and sparkling."

An uncomfortable pause wedged itself between mother and son, the former staring on unwaveringly with the expectation of an agreement. The gesture that followed had been witnessed too often to be met with anything but helplessness. Tai looked down and rubbed his forehead while his mother smiled. It was empty and nervous, the kind of tight smile aired in the deafening stillness after a show, where the audience collectively debated giving applause. Ironically, it was an infectious expression, filling all who witnessed it with a stomach-flipping dread. Matt bit his lip, fingers gripping the table as he wondered how to take command of the conversation and save them all.

He didn't think fast enough.

"You've been awfully secretive about your latest trip to Europe, Taichi," said Mrs. Kamiya. "Any news you'd like to share? I'm interested in hearing how Ca—"

The table rocked, Kari's water glass spilling and candlesticks nearly toppling over as T.K. knocked his knee hard on the underside, clutching his phone in a hand as he stared at it as if it were the holy burning bush witnessed by Moses.

"God, Takeru," Mrs. Kamiya breathed, a scold audible on the tip of her tongue. "What's happened?" She held a hand to her chest, Mr. Kamiya setting a hand on her shoulder as he looked beside him at T.K.

"I... I..." he stammered, lowering his phone. He looked at each face carefully, nakedly, wonder glittering in his eyes. "I'm getting published!" he shouted.

"You're _what?_" Mrs. Kamiya echoed. To provide solid proof, T.K. reached over and showed Mr. and Mrs. Kamiya his phone screen, which bore the congratulatory email. As he entertained them with the technology, T.K. tilted his head slightly and winked at the rest of them. Matt shook his head with relief. To his left, Tai sighed and leaned back in his seat.

"And that's my cue to get up and take a piss," he muttered.

xXx

The rest of dinner, thanks to T.K., progressed without further fiasco. Catherine's name wasn't even dropped, and, instead, they passed a great portion of the night talking about Izzy and Mimi.

According to T.K., the Americanized couple was well on its way to world domination. Matt could easily imagine Mimi gracing the cover of _Forbes _magazine one day—skirt suit on, five inch stilettos firmly grounded, arms akimbo. She had attained success in several industries: business, food, fashion, and entertainment; whatever she lacked was provided by Izzy, who brought science and education into their unique, but surprisingly balanced, mix.

At present, Matt loitered about the lobby, glad to be out of the dining area and its looming, potentially murderous chandeliers. Kari stood beside him. They were waiting for Sora and Mr. and Mrs. Kamiya to check out their coats. A few feet away from where they stood were Tai and T.K., and by the way the former was speaking to T.K.—a hand on his shoulder—and how the latter stood slightly hunched with his hands in his pockets, Matt supposed that gratitude was being offered.

"You planned it, didn't you? You and T.K.?" Matt asked, glimpsing down at Kari.

The kindergarten teacher smiled weakly, averting her eyes to the floor.

"I talked with Tai earlier and got the full story about Catherine on this last trip of his," she explained. She peeked over at the coat check to make sure her parents weren't approaching. "It wasn't good."

Matt issued a contemplative hum, his eyebrows furrowing as he watched Tai extend his hand to T.K. His baby brother messed up what was a simple, brotherly handshake (mistaking it for an invitation to hug) and earned a loving punch in the arm for his awkward rebound.

"Usually it's apathetic," he replied. "They meet, hook up, and go their separate ways. It's not an Ernest Hemingway novel. Though, my last phone call with Tai, he did avoid talking about Kat. What happened this time?"

"He got drunk," Kari said, somewhere between dismally and irritably. "He doesn't remember most of what he said, but Catherine did. Apparently, he was waxing on and on about how he would ask his boss to permanently relocate him to Europe so he could be with her."

Matt inhaled slowly, almost wincing.

"Let me guess, she wasn't impressed."

"I won't speak for her," Kari said, unusually bitter, "but if she really cared about my brother, she would have ended this charade years ago. The fact that she keeps receiving him just..." She paused and exhaled loudly through her nose, never finishing what could be a dangerous thought. Matt was about to reach out and give her a comforting rub on the shoulder but she looked back up at him, showing for a brief second the same courage that Tai exuded out of his every pore.

"I will say that Tai needs a break from her," she resumed. "He should be glad that he's here and not there. He needs a long break from her. I really hope his next assignment takes him to Nairobi."

Matt smiled and, instead of a gesture of comfort, patted her proudly on the back.

"He could finally get you tea set number twenty, this time made out of recycled elephant poo."

The comment earned a chuckle from her, in time for Sora and Mr. and Mrs. Kamiya to return to them. Kari was drawn into a conversation with Sora about her upcoming wedding dress appointment, and Matt gravitated towards Tai and T.K., the latter of which was yanked away by Mrs. Kamiya who peppered him with more questions about the story he was getting published.

"You owe the kid," Matt said, leading the way out of the restaurant. He held the door open as their party filed out, Tai lingering behind so that he could walk with him.

"I already offered to pay for the strippers for your bachelor's party," Tai replied jokingly. "I think that's fair. Can't imagine T.K. visiting a strip club or calling one up to hire them, anyway. His nose would be gushing blood—among other things."

Matt snorted.

"_Au contraire_," he parried. "T.K. would delight in the empirical environment of a strip club. If anything, he'd creep them out by staring at their faces too long, trying to count each of their wrinkles before writing the numbers down in his notepad."

"For what?" Tai wondered. "For literature?"

Matt laughed.

"What else? One of his professors had him spending two hours staring at coils of shit in a public toilet, Tai. That's what they do."

"Fucking hell, Matt. I just ate."

"Come on, Mr. Ambassador. You have a stronger constitution than that."

They fell quiet as they approached the parking garage, a rare, unsettling occurrence. Usually, Tai was a chatterbox when buzzed, and he was most definitely buzzed after all the wine he had drunk, but he was troublingly taciturn.

"Hey," said Matt, slowing his pace to a stop. "I didn't get a chance to ask you this." He set a hand on Tai's shoulder, looking directly at him. "You glad to be back home?"

Tai smiled and gave Matt's hand a few lazy pats.

"Yeah," he said, then shrugged. "Hell, of course." He laughed feebly. "No one can take a joke in Europe. People there take what I say way too seriously."

Matt looked down, grimacing at the cement sidewalk. It was the perfect invitation to bring up the truth about Tai's encounter with Catherine, but his tongue couldn't muster the question. Instead, he let in a pause, silence flooding in between them, washing away the remnants of a conversation that should have kept going.

"I wasn't planning on telling you this until later, when I told everybody else," Matt began, finding it safe to begin anew. He stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets. "But..."

Tai stopped and turned to him, an eyebrow piquing. Matt's lips thinned into a smile.

"I got in," he stated, vaguely. "I'm going."

"What? Got in where? Going _where_?"

Matt raised his pointer finger and directed it at the night sky. It took a moment for the gesture to register, and Tai's face pinched as his gaze shifted from Matt to the streetlamp shedding light on them.

"Aw, shit, Matt," he groaned. "One of those evangelicals finally got to you, didn't they? Selling you on that Jesus-will-save-your-soul crap."

"No, idiot." He rammed a fist into Tai's shoulder. "I finally got into my training program. You know, to become an astronaut? Ring a bell?"

Tai chuckled, barely put off balance by Matt's assault.

"Of course I knew that, _idiot_. I was just fucking with you." He snickered some more. "No one else knows? Not even the soon-to-be Missus?"

"No. Sora knows. Can't hide anything from her anyway. But everybody else? T.K., Kari, Joe, Mimi, Izzy? No. There's enough going on with wedding plans. I want to keep this on the downlow. Besides, even if I complete the training, it doesn't mean I'll be an astronaut. It's just the start of the process."

"Well, congrats. Taking a step forward is still something to celebrate, Yama. You've earned it. Maybe now you'll finally stop writing songs with cosmic metaphors."

"Hey. You know those were the best ones. You made love to them. Don't deny it."

He laughed as Tai's stare funneled down to a squint, a warning finger wagging under Matt's giggling chin.

"You little shit," Tai grumbled, the growl-like undertones replaced with chortles by the end.

They continued their walk to the parking garage, their meandering pace not in the least helped by Sora's distant pleas for them to hurry up. Matt hailed her back with a wave and a, "I'll be there in five, beautiful!" to which Tai attached, "Yeah! Five minutes to convince him he's making the biggest mistake of his life!" to which _Sora_ replied with the discreet flip of a middle digit.

"So... plans now that you're back?" Matt asked. He halted his steps by the trunk of his parked car, aware that Sora was just a few feet behind him, shivering in her coat by the passenger side.

"None whatsoever." Tai smiled, evidently proud of his lack of preparation. "I don't see the point. I'm home. I have all the time in the world. No one needs me on a plane to Timbuktu in twenty-four hours. That's the closest thing I've had to a vacation all year."

Matt nodded in understanding, but he grimaced in reply to Tai's grin.

"Nothing to be missed back in Europe?" he dared to question. Their eyes locked as Tai's attention was seized, and he waited for the defensive measures to kick in, for the scowl to develop, the brown eyes to tear away and glare at the cement ceiling. But, not surprisingly, Tai held his ground, unimpressed with Matt's failed subterfuge.

"Nothing," Tai echoed back. His voice was chillingly phlegmatic. "Nothing," he repeated, and he turned and gave both him and Sora an indirect wave goodbye. "Nothing and no one."

xXx

**A/N: If you're afraid that Tai's cranky, tight-lippedness over Catherine will get real old real fast, you're right. It will. Thankfully, it won't come up for a while because we'll actually get his true perspective on things in the upcoming chapters. Also, please be mindful that everything you read **_**about**_** Catherine in this chapter and those previous are **_**opinions**_** from secondary characters. Do not mistake Kari's, Matt's, or Yuuko's opinion of her for "truth." **

**Now, with that out of the way… Can I just say that I love T.K.? :P **

**And I warned you this chapter was pretty much pointless. I hope you're not too upset. Next few updates should speed things up a bit as our two leading ladies finally make their grand appearances and we get this ball rolling. **

**Thank you for reading! Any feedback you have would be greatly appreciated! :) **


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